WWI Balloon Hydrogen Detector: Avoiding That Sinking Feeling

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While today we don't tend to think of balloons as weapons of war, they in fact have a long and proud military heritage stretching back to the 1790s. The heyday of the military observation balloon was the First World War, when detectors like this one would have been issued to find leaks in the balloon envelopes.

[@thurin84]

italian pilot Francesco Baracca collided with a balloon he was shooting down but managed to survive the collision flying home with pieces of it on his aircraft. he had a trenchcoat made from the pieces.

[@cementer7665]

I am so glad that I found this channel. Not only is the man an excellent historian, but he does so without the use of idiotic music, or nonsensical clips from movies or television programs. He ranks right up there with The History Guy, and The History Chap, and the very, very few others who do not insult the intelligence of their viewers.

[@paulwalsh2458]

This is a criminally undersubbed channel.

[@gherkinisgreat]

You might like Drachinefel and Rex's Hangar

[@chrisrose_krii_lun_aus]

I just bought 2 of these that look brand new at a yard sale for 10 bucks. I'm always looking for WW2 stuff and I knew from feet away they were something from that era. It took me a little bit to find some information about them. One was made in England and one in the states. I emailed the RAF museum and they actually emailed me back and I've been talking with them. I wound think many of these survived being mostly made of wood. I haven't found out how man or if they have any on display. If they don't or mine is in better shape I was going to donate it to the museum. If they have a pile of them they look good in my mantle also. I like trying to give back foreign spoils of war when I can. My friends and I spent a year deciphering and trying to find out who a Japanese flag belonged to. We finally found out and sent it to them. They sent a big package with a lot of pictures and letters just copies of personal stuff that they thought I should read. My papaw fought the Japanese in WW2 and he hated them. One thing I have that I can't or won't return is a katana he brought home. Anyway the stories and the letters I read. These were boys just like ours were only they were starved to death and expected to fight. If you were so weak you couldn't get up they would just shoot you. Sometimes they would get a couple tablespoons full of rice with maggots. They would strip the wood of anything living and eat it. Our boys were pretty well supplied. From these letter these men were ready to fight until the end. Then the women were supposed to fight then the children. He either wanted to win or make that japanese people extinct. If he were going to die no one deserves to live. If you could help me out I would like to find a WW2 collector that would be interested in the other I have until I talk more with the RAF. It has a official us army corps of engineers plague on it. It has the series number, assembly number, date of manufacture 5-17-43, maybe a model number I don't know 357 an it has other writings that I have no idea what they are and I'm not trying to figure out armed forces pig Latin today. It's made by Johnson service company Milwaukee, wi hydrogen and helium leak detector. It is also in perfect shape which amazes me that two thirds of it is wood. They're actually very pleasing looking especially the pair beside each other. They are almost identical. Could have even been patent sharing and they are the same just made by different companies. If you can help me with anything 8ll give you my email and send pictures if you want. I know this is a shot in the dark but hey I'm talking to the RAF now so you never know.

[@cbhlde]

“There's nothing cushy about life in the Women's Auxiliary Balloon Corps!” :)

[@AsbestosMuffins]

this channel is massively underappreciated.

[@ai4px]

I’ve been geeking out on Gilles for about three weeks. Wow.

[@HeaanLasai]

Could it have used a semi-permeable membrane? Such a membrane would have degraded enough to turn it into a static pressure gauge after this many years, but could hypothetically allow for detecting the partial pressure of hydrogen, while closing out the much more massive oxygen and nitrogen molecules. Yes, selective membranes are mostly a modern thing, but hydrogen is such an 'escape artist' that almost every membrane is a semi-permeable membrane to it.

[@pizzablender]

I'm also going for the "partial pressure" theory of operation. A membrane would let hydrogen into the device chamber. Air cannot get out, and thus, the pressure there would increase, potentially by a lot of the hydrogen concentration is high.

[@henrya3530]

That device must have been very sensitive when it was made as the hydrogen in an airship's envelope was only at 1% to 3% above ambient air pressure.

[@ptonpc]

That device is ingenious in its simplicity and the history was fascinating.

[@user-it7lf7kk8m]

The john Davis company of Derby England is stiil going. I worked for them for a while. They were mainly involved in producing equipment for use in areas with explosive atmospheres eg mines , refineries etc. they have a long history of producing varous instrumentation.

[@imark7777777]

Radio lab has an excellent episode on the Japanese paper balloon attack. Surprising I've never heard anything until the last few years about this. And same about balloons in warfare.

[@AsbestosMuffins]

honestly I think historians of the last 100 years kept trying to reframe ww1 as a prelude to ww2 that most of the aspects of ww1 that didn't fit that narrative got downplayed. WW1 really is a mix of conflicts going back to the civil war, on through ww2 instead. Balloons were a huge part of ww1 but they were mostly a footnote of ww2

[@edwardhayden4626]

Wouldn't a match be cheaper and simpler?

[@Jon6429]

Repeat after me... it's not steam punk it's just an handheld scanner for use with time bombs

[@mumiemonstret]

I was as intrigued as you and feel a bit disappointed if it is simply a manometer. I don't think that your test is conclusive, though. You apply quite a large pressure for that small needle deflection. Can it not be that it is really sensitive to hydrogen partial pressure but needs to be calibrated for total pressure (by means of the release valve)? I could imagine that a semipermeable membrane (well, almost every membrane is permeable to hydrogen) could be used in this fashion.

[@DK-jt6be]

Fantastic video!

[@shadmtmtn1603]

Excellent video, very well documented and very fluid (as usual, should i add👍❤). Just 1 thing, you didn't put subtitles so i have only the KZbin's automatic and unverified subtitles in english : i'm french (but fluent after 30 years of intensive use for my work), and obviously interested in tech (and everything related to transports in general, for that matter 😅), and i have to google search for the names of the chemist and compagny, because i only knew the 1st name of the chemist by deduction, since he is rename Jean-Claude (without family name...) in the subtitles 😅 The balloon itself is renamed "Nantrapana" for "L'Entrepreneur", thank you for this 1 oral translation ❤ Long live your channel 🖖

[@crystalsheep1434]

Here from the micro photograph video

[@Iowa599]

Wow…steam over hot iron yields hydrogen! That's so strange! I guess the discovery would be due to corrosion on steam equipment and gas bubbles appearing in closed steam equipment.

[@P-B-G_YT]

The oxidation of the iron (rust is iron oxide) released the hydrogen molecules.

[@fredblonder7850]

The Le Prieur Rocket is just a Congreve Rocket, which was made famous by the line “Rocket’s Red Glare” in the Star Spangled Banner. Congreve Rockets were also notoriously inaccurate; although many were fired at Fort McHenry, I don’t recall that they did any damage.

[@CanadianMacGyver]

I don't think they did much damage either; however, they were undoubtedly effective from a pure shock and awe perspective!

[@fredblonder7850]

@@CanadianMacGyver Until the Americans figured out how useless they were. At the Battle of New Orleans the Brits fired Congreve Rockets and the Americans just laughed. In 1814 when the British burned the Capitol, they piled flammable material in the rooms then fired Congreve Rockets through the windows. ;-)

[@NoahSpurrier]

There’s a very interesting book about the history of balloons at war. I forget the name.. Barrage balloons were very interesting.

[@fredblonder7850]

You mention that Coal Gas is a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide. Note that carbon monoxide is not a contaminant, as it is flammable and generates heat when burned. Carbon monoxide much prefers to become carbon dioxide.

[@CanadianMacGyver]

Indeed, though for the purposes of inflating a balloon it is a contaminant, since it is denser than air. I actually have a prior video on the use of town gas as a vehicle fuel during the First World War. They had to use giant balloons strapped to the top of the vehicle to store the gas at ambient pressure because storing it in compressed cylinders would have a) caused the CO to decompose; and b) caused the hydrogen to leak through the metal fittings.

[@fredblonder7850]

@@CanadianMacGyver Coal Gas also contained a fair amount of soot, and it was this soot heated to incandescence that gave off light. When municipal gas systems switched to cleaner natural gas, open-flame fanjet lights became dimmer, though mantle gaslights would not be affected. My brother got the gaslights in his house operating. This is the largest, a four fanjet fixture: kzbin.info/www/bejne/nWaaoKWQgJJsjMU . Each jet supplies the equivalent of 15 watts incandescent, so the total is one 60-watt incandescent bulb which lights the center of the room but leaves the corners murky. (Note that until you’ve been in a room lit by gas you don’t appreciate how much heat they give off. A room lit by gas needs no additional heat in winter.) There were also extra-large bright fanjets called Jumbo Jets. The mantle gaslight was invented by Carl Auer von Welsbach, who along with Thaddeus Lowe was a student of Robert Bunsen. During the American Civil War, Thaddeus Lowe became acquainted with the German cavalry officer, Ferdinand von Zeppelin, who later had this wacky plan to strap a bunch of balloons together in a light frame and attach a motor and propellor.

[@juslitor]

CO is actually slightly lighter than air. CO2 is denser than air@@CanadianMacGyver

[@fredblonder7850]

Balloons are not obsolete for military use. The US Army uses them in the Gulf of Mexico to interdict drug runners. They use radar instead of an observer. The smugglers are aware of this and have learned to modify automotive radar-detectors to detect the radar balloons, however the range of the radar is greater than the range of the radar-detectors. Knowing the range of the modified radar-detector, the Coast Guard positions interceptors at that distance on either side of the radar boat, so smugglers attempting to skirt the radar are funneled directly towards the Coast Guard boat. ;-)

[@CanadianMacGyver]

I never said they were; my point is that most people don't think they have any use at all - especially today. However, the video was getting long and I decided it was best to stop at the Cold War. The modern uses of balloons might make a good subject for a separate video.

[@cementer7665]

I don't believe that they would be "used by the US Army", but more likely the user(s) would be either the Coast Guard, or Customs and Border Patrol. I have found two of these stations, along the Texas-Mexican border, one located near Rio Grande City, and the other at Valentine, TX.

[@fredblonder7850]

@@cementer7665 Er, sorry, but I said US Army and I meant US Army. I was employed by the Unites States Army to develop software for controlling the radar systems on the balloons, and to track targets. You are correct that the US Coast Guard was involved, in that they intercepted targets at the direction of the Army. The Army did not perform interceptions. There was a bizarre division of responsibility, in that the Army personnel were seated next to USCG personnel, and were required to exchange information verbally, as their systems were not permitted to directly connect, due to weird politics, or the terms of the contract, or whatever. It made no sense, but I worked on software, not the political end. This was the government at work. It is not required to make sense.

[@fredblonder7850]

@@cementer7665 More info: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tethered_Aerostat_Radar_System “In 1991 the US Congress transferred five aerostats to the Department of the Army to be used to do drug enforcement surveilliance, primarily in the Gulf of Mexico.”

[@FFGOMER17]

Balloons are still very much used by the US Army, as well as other forces and nations. Anybody who served in Iraq or Afghanistan can attest to the aerostats which were used for observation and rocket/mortar detection. I believe called TARS and/or PTDS?. Furthermore there was the JLENS system that was tested around Aberdeen Proving Ground for cruise missile defense. Much like Jille mentioned in the video about the British attempting to disrupt the power supply in Germany, when one of the JLENS tethers broke the balloon got away and reeked havoc on the power grid as it floated into southern Pennsylvania and shorted out power lines. I believe the Israelis also utilize aerostats similar to those used in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as a system similar to JLENS to warn against incoming artillery/rocket attacks.

[@melody3741]

Exactly same as my theory lol that was my first thought

[@vac65]

L'Entrepreneur = The Enterpriser

[@user-nq2bb9ud9e]

You could always use a match

[@user-it7lf7kk8m]

Update from the future, china sent a couple over the US iirc in 2022 or 2023